


Richard.

by Oyakata_Manya



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Death, F/M, Introspection, Jiraiya-centric, POV Second Person, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Tension, everyone else is only mentioned - Freeform, you already know wtf’s goin on
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22455475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oyakata_Manya/pseuds/Oyakata_Manya
Summary: Leaving this world is not as scary as it sounds.
Relationships: Jiraiya/Tsunade (Naruto)
Kudos: 23





	Richard.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is the name of a track from the Hotline Miami 2 ost. The summary is also a reference to that game.
> 
> For context; at the time of my writing this, I am currently watching shippuden, almost completely unspoiled. Jiraiya’s death has me the saddest an anime has made me feel in a long time.
> 
> Apparently I’m only in for worse, but this is my tribute to him, as one of my favorite characters.

Your body falls beneath the rippling waves. 

This is—

The end, you think. The climactic fall of Jiraiya the Gallant. Battered, beaten and bruised; too exhausted to swim upwards as you sink and sink deeper. There is nothing you can do now. Not from here, not like this. You can only hope that your encrypted message can make it all the way back to Konoha—but that, too, is out of your hands, utterly up to the whims of chance at this point. 

Your vision blurs. The water is thick, and murky, and so so dark. 

Of course it should come to an end like this. You had been so close, and now—now here you are, throat slowly filling with water as you grow weightier, heavier with it. It’s almost too unbelievable to imagine; Nagato (or was it Yahiko?), your student, who you’d trained and loved, who you’d cared for and then wept for upon the news you’d received of his death. 

Well now you are the one dying, and Nagato (Yahiko, it had surely been Yahiko) lives. 

And leads the Akatsuki. 

Had it been him, all along? That child of prophecy that had existed as nothing but a far off destiny since you’d first heard of it as a youth training towards Sagehood on Mount Myoboku, all those years ago. 

The one who you would shape, the one who would grow into a great revolutionary to bring about peace. 

(But there had always been the possibility of destruction, hadn’t there? Ever since the beginning. You only refused to acknowledge it.)

It’s starting to get dark. You can no longer make out the lapping waves above you. Your limbs are heavy as lead weights. The water rushing into your nose burns, and it occurs to you that you should probably be fighting it more. 

But you’re too tired; you’re old and worn, and death comes to everyone eventually. 

_Death_ —now that’s a grim word. But that’s what this is, isn’t it? You’re going to die here, beneath the still waters on Amegakure. 

A hero is only as great as the legend he leaves behind—if writing has taught you anything, it is this. 

(That, and maybe which words for manhood get the most positive responses. You remember almost blearily a scathing review that a particular volume of Icha Icha has received, because you’d spent the entire novel calling the damn thing a _fuckstick_. 

The memory is a bright, happy one, and it causes you to laugh. The water fills your lungs, your throat.)

Will you leave a legend behind? 

The notion is soft, small. You are Jiraiya, one of three sannin. You are a sage, an author, a warrior. You have learned jutsu that tame beasts; topple mountains. 

Will that be the legend of you?

Or will it be the legend of the boy you’d trained—the same boy who had sent you crashing into these waters (water—your lungs fill with water. Your brain feels fuzzy, feel numb) and would lead the world onto destruction?

Or would it be—

  
  


**Love.**

  
  


Your earliest memories are of Tsunade. 

This is because you love her; you’ve always loved her, though perhaps that love has taken on a different form over the years. 

She is a memory, warm and bright; a blinding reflection of the light of childhood. 

Even then, you’d—

“I told you, for the last time!” She had always been a violent girl, but you’d liked that. You’ve always liked that. Her strength was unparalleled by all else, except perhaps her beauty. 

“I’m _not_ going on a date with you!”

She clocks him, the young and vigorous you, all brutality and no holding back. You watch, an audience member interloping on the scene, as your younger self is knocked back a considerable ways. 

The blonde girl rights herself from the force of her own punch, and sets a hand on her hip. Even then, she had been beautiful; though it was a childish beauty, like sunflowers and clear skies. Her topknot of golden hair glowed like a halo and her neck twinkled with the jeweled necklace gifted to her by the First Hokage—her grandfather. 

Tsunade had always been a princess; had been destined for greatness since she was young. 

All you wanted was to be able to—

Experience it with her. 

She grows old. You watch her, as her hair lengthens, then whitens, and her skin wrinkles like leather. Tsunade was not attractive in her age; or at least that’s what she’d thought. She’s taken to keeping a henge on at all times; forever entombing her in her youth. 

But—you have always thought she was beautiful. _Always_. 

It’s sad, perhaps, now. In life, in the vigor of your brashness, you have never felt regret or remorse in your feelings for your fellow sannin. You had faced countless rejections before; and had later learned to appreciate women on a broader scale. 

Sure, you wrote love stories (though they could only truly be considered such if one squinted while reading them) but you were no sapping romantic. 

But still—

In the moments before death, everything becomes clear. You miss Tsunade, long for her. 

If only she had ever—

  
  


**Betrayal.**

  
  


Then you remember—Orochimaru. 

As a child, you had never cared for him. Your sensei had always revered him, even then, as something of a prodigy; a genius, better than you in every way. You hated that, hated him, then. 

You were suspicious of him. He had been so different from you; as a child he was taller than you and yet frail, he was a willow with skin like spider’s thread hiding behind a curtain of glossy dark hair. 

He was quiet, curiously so; as though he was perpetually keeping himself at a distance from the rest of the world, cautiously and critically analyzing everything. The flicker of his light eyes—when they caught on you, you felt envy burn in your guts. 

But things are different, now. 

You watch as the Third Great War comes. It changes you, as war changes everyone. Your beaming personality hardens like battle armor as you stand with Konoha and against the world. 

War has hardened Orochimaru, too. You see the way he broadens; the way his jaw thickens and his muscles fill out. He is still smaller than you, but at this point in your life, it matters little to you. 

He fades into the background. 

And then with the death of Tsunade’s lover, Dan, he changes. 

Or maybe he was always going to change, you wonder now, watching as you are, removed from it all. His parents had died so long ago and it left him jagged, jaded. 

Maybe he was—and it hurts to think this—maybe he was always destined to snap, from the very beginning. 

You watch as Orochimaru’s selfless goal of preventing the deaths of others becomes the selfish goal of preventing his own. He says he seeks knowledge, the chance to learn every jutsu, but it warps him; turns him twisted and gnarly. 

He is discovered by their sensei, and leaves the village. 

And this you regret—you will always regret it; that you weren’t able to bring him back. 

Because he had turned horrible by that point, and he was a monster, and maybe even before then you had hated him, but—

He was your friend. 

And those who abandon their friends are worse than scum. 

(Hadn’t someone said that, once?)

And after that, Orochimaru becomes a harbinger; gnawing at the dark edges of the peaceful world. 

If only you had been able to—

  
  


**Loss.**

  
  


You had only returned to Konoha after hearing of Sarutobi Hiruzen’s death. 

Your sensei. Dead and fallen in his own kingdom; felled by his student. 

(This story is familiar, now, agonizingly so.)

The news is painful, like an open wound in your gut. Konoha hadn’t been at war with anyone, not then; there had been no reason for it. And yet—

They ask you to become Hokage. 

You cannot. Of this, you are certain. It isn’t that you don’t want to, or aren’t capable; but the undeniable truth is that it cannot happen. Not in this reality. Not for the future fate has set out for you. 

You destiny is different; has been different ever since that day on Mount Myoboku, one thousand years ago. 

And it has been thousands of years—hasn’t it? The world has changed much since those days. People have come and gone; the flow of time rushing forward relentlessly with the might strength of the Nakano river. 

But you—had you ever changed?

Even now, you wonder. 

You train a young boy, once. (No, it was two young boys). He has sunny golden hair and eyes like the sea (they both don the ruddy red tresses typical of Ame people; one with deep dark eyes like great wells of mud and the other with something unique—lilac rings that whirl while he fights—)

You train a revolutionary, once. You learn years prior that he will bring about great change; a bringer of peace. (A bringer of destruction; there was never any way to be sure which.) He is headstrong, determined (he is quiet, cautious) and sure of his path to become (God—)

You train a—

  
  


**Future.**

  
  


His name is Naruto. 

He is the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki, and the spitting image of his father, but his personality is his mother’s. 

You denounce him as a one-note beat the moment you meet him. 

Your days of training pupils are done and long gone; your destiny is but a wisp or a dream from millions of years ago. 

And yet—

You train him anyways. 

He’s a persistent lad, at least. He calls you “Pervy Sage” like it’s a title; grins at you with a wide mouth and crinkling eyes. It’s the expression of someone who has spent his whole life smiling. 

And you cannot help but wonder why, for if there was ever anyone with little to smile about, it is this boy. 

You teach him his father’s jutsu. 

Naruto wields the rasengan like it’s his own; makes it stronger, makes it unique. He is a sight to see as it activates, with a kage bunshin at his side and the wide spiraling around him, his blue, blue eyes wide and determined. 

He is going to grow up to become a legend, you think then. 

Now, you know this to be true. 

Naruto was the one—it was him, you realize in your final moments, drifting in your memories as you are. That revolutionary foretold at the dawn of his lifetime was always going to be this boy; this boy who had no one, nothing but a demon inside of him and a world to live up to. 

You feel pity, maybe for abandoning him like this, though you’ve already taught him everything you possibly can. 

Without you, he is going to be—

  
  
  


**Death.**

  
  


You think of your books. 

That story of the man called Naruto—that gutsy ninja who had became a legend. 

What will become of him now?

Someone said once that a hero is only as great as the legend he leaves behind—

What legend is that?

There surely must be more to that story. It can’t end like this; there must be more to that story. 

It’s dark now, but you must—finish that story. Maybe write a sequel—what will you title it? There isn’t any time to waste, because it has to come to a satisfying ending, or else it won’t do well in stores! 

You have to write! You’ve suffered the demon that is writer’s block for too long now, but it’s on the top of your tongue. The finale, what must happen for our hero, the legend that he will surely leave behind. 

You’re breathless; you need a pen, some paper. It comes to you, the words of a story. You must finish that story, it can’t end like this;

it can’t end like this;

it can’t end like this;

it can’t end like this;

it can’t end like this;

it can’t end like

it can’t

.


End file.
